Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE. The reader has a right to know what degree of credit is due to the following narrative; and it is the object of this preface to give him that satisfaction. It was in the summer of 1S05, that the design of writing this biography was first, conceived. It was produced by an incident of feeling, which, however it affected the author at the time, might now be thought light and trivial by the reader; and he shall not, therefore, be detained by the recital of it. The author knew nothing of Mr. Henry, personally. He had never seen him; and was of course compelled to rely wholly on the, information of others. As soon, therefore, as the design was formed of writing his life, aware of the necessity of losing no tune in collecting, from the few remaining coevals of Mr. Henry, that personal knowledge of the subject which might ere long be expected to die with them, the author despatched letters to every quarter of the stato in which it occurred to him as probable that interesting matter might be found; and he was gratified by the prompt attention which was paid to his inquiries. There were, at that tune, living in the county of Hanover, three gentlemen of the first respectability, who had been the companions of Mr. Henry's childhood and youth; these were, Col. Charles Dabuey, Capt. George Dabney, and Col. William O. Winston; the two first of whom are still living. Not having the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with these gentlemen, the author interested the late Mr. Nathaniel Pope in his object, and, by his instrumentality, procured all the useful information which was in their possession. Mr. Pope is well known to have been a gentleman of uncommonly vigorous and discriminating mind; a sacred observer of truth, and a man of the purest sense of honour. The author can...